UPDATE 1-Former AVG executives beef up cyber security investment fund

PRAGUE, July 17 (Reuters) - A group of former executives and
investors from antivirus software maker AVG Technologies
have raised an additional $55 million for their fund
that invests in cyber security companies, its managing partner
said.

Evolution Equity Partners, which raised $70 million in its
first funding round in 2015, is looking to bulk up its portfolio
at a time when cyber attacks and hacks worldwide are surging.

Last month, a computer virus dubbed GoldenEye or Petya
wreaked havoc on firms in more than 60 countries, disrupting
work at ports and factories while causing economic losses
estimated in the billions of dollars.

Managing partner Richard Seewald said the fund would look to
add three to five firms to its portfolio of nine companies,
which includes Boston-based cyber security group Carbon Black
that has been reported to be a potential stock listing.

Seewald said the fund, based in New York and Zurich,
ultimately wanted to have investments in 18 to 25 companies
spanning the United States, Europe and Israel.

"The fund is in the portfolio-building phase," he said in a
telephone interview. "We are looking at opportunities
systematically across all those geographies. Over the next
couple of months you will see more activity."

Evolution typically invests in $5 million to $25 million
chunks. Its latest deal was leading a $10 million funding round
for Danish next-generation security platform provider LogPoint
to help the company to expand.

Seewald said competition was growing for investments.

Research firm CB Insights data showed a record year for the
number of deals in cyber security in 2016. At the same time,
security spending is rising and should rise almost 8 percent to
$90 billion in 2017 before topping $113 billion by 2020,
according to information technology research company Gartner.